BlackBerry PlayBook said to be destined for ‘same graveyard as the HP TouchPad’

As Research In Motion prepares to report its fiscal second-quarter earnings on Thursday after the market closes, the future of the company and its next-generation products again takes center stage. While estimates for RIM’s second and third quarters are expected by some analysts to beat Wall Street’s consensus, performance of the vendor’s just-released BlackBerry 7 smartphones obviously doesn’t weigh as heavily on the minds of analysts as RIM’s future products and strategy. QNX and its ability to compete with the likes of Apple and Google will be analysts’ focus for the next several quarters, and unfortunately for RIM, the only QNX device it has launched to date is the BlackBerry PlayBook. Read on for more.

Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair believes that there is no “meaningful evidence” that RIM is poised to turn things around. Analysts have lowered their expectations for the second quarter and while that may help the vendor when it reports its earnings on Thursday, it will do little for the company in the long run according to Blair. He also says BlackBerry 7 device sales have been mixed thus far, and though they offer a significant improvement compared to older BlackBerry phones, they “should have come out with 18 – 24 months ago.”

On the PlayBook tablet, Blair’s opinion is even more dour. “Last quarter RIM talked about shipping 500,000 units but did not speak of sell-through for obvious reasons,” the analyst wrote in a note to investors on Wednesday. “Channel fill could turn up another decent shipment number this year in the 500,000 – 700,000 unit range but we believe sell-through has been weak enough that that number will trend down over the year and RIM will likely send the PlayBook into the same graveyard as the HP TouchPad.”

RIM has a lot to prove following its first-quarter results, which missed estimates and were accompanied by news of imminent layoffs. A win on Thursday would be a nice start, but the company must also be focused on instilling investor confidence in RIM’s management, strategy and next-generation QNX platform.

Also– everyone knows the term “tablet” is synonymous with the term “iPad.”

Jth9234

The iPad2 is the most popular tablet in sales, consumer buzz, and media hype. It has the fastest browser of any tablet I have ever seen. “iPad” is to “tablet” as vaseline is to petroleum jelly or band aid is to well what are they called? Unless you own stocks in these companies though none of that matters a bit. Do you have to like Transformers more than Shawshank Redemption bc it was a far more financially successful piece of entertainment? NO? Then why is that at all relevant in tablets?

Let me tell you if you own a Blackberry, the Playbook is the best tablet hands down. I don’t have the time to go through in detail but let me just say, it has the better OS, better multitasking, better bluetooth integration, better hardware, better screen resolution, better speakers, better cameras, better file sharing, with bridge it circumvents the need for a monthly data plan, tethering plan, or wifi hotspot plan saving $20-$25 a month. It has the more complete browser with only notable limitations in Hulu being blocked and lack of Silverlight support for Netflix. Full websites can be bookmarked for one click access which makes almost all the apps on iOS seem passe when you can run almost all the real sites.

As for email, when bridged, no tablet does email better than the Playbook. When not bridged, you just one click the AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. icons and log in.So I don’t want to hear it doesn’t do email. Thats false. It doesn’t do “native” email, but “bridge email is just as good, if not better!

And if that wasn’t enough, to shut up people that think apps matter so much in our “there’s an app for that” naive consumer mindset, its getting Android apps? What will the iPad2 do to improve or keep up? It won’t, Apple will just release the iPad3 and it will still just run mobile apps in place of full websites for much of its browsing…

http://about.me/brandonmccall brandonmccall

I hear ya. It’s always been to my understanding that people use the products that work for them. I don’t get mad at an apple for not tasting like an orange.

Yoyo

I still wouldn’t buy it because its made by RIM and its Blackberry format

Applesucksfatties

good for you……now move along.

Jth9234

Brainwashed by Apple’s superior marketing? So you won’t buy something bc of the brand name on it? What if its actually better than Apple’s offerings? I mean the only advantage I see the iPad2 having is if you prefer a 9.7” screen over a 7” screen, thats it. Playbook owns it on pretty much everything else and continues to update its software.

Devon2000

@15c06b9cfaaf15a73568b40ba3887afe:disqus and that makes you an idiot because its a brand new Operating System completely different from whats on the cell phones.

Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiito. Does the existence of RIM have any impact on your life?

Coocoo

Hey Guys. Many of you beat up these comments calling the PlayBook a disaster, but now that we know they have only shipped 200,000 units (down from 500,000 units last quarter), what do you think now of Brian Blair and Wedge Partners. Seems like he was spot on.

http://twitter.com/sohrob Sohrob Tahmasebi

RIM got way too comfortable for a long time and they failed to innovate and realize that there was a huge opportunity to improve upon the experience they offered to consumers. They are now paying the price for that complacency.